21/10
Close-up reference: Why do we need a Venice Film Festival?
Line of Events
When visionary architect László Toth and his wife Erzsébete flee postwar Europe in 1947 to rebuild their legacy and witness the birth of modern America, their lives are forever changed by a mysterious and wealthy client. Laszlo Toth was also the name of the man who damaged Michelangelo’s Pieta with a hammer.. (2024).
Brutalist is full of surprises
The characters are not what you expect – not in the way that ends with Scooby Doo, but in the subtler, more gradual ways that real people reveal themselves – they reveal themselves over time, in a new context, or forced by circumstances. the horrors of the aftermath of World War II. Adrien Brody’s Laszlo, a Jewish architect who escaped the clutches of a bloody Europe, enters America’s welcoming embrace—or is met by it—in a frenetic opening sequence that literally reminds us that he was born by the Statue of Liberty.
What is the lesson?
He becomes a journeyman who constantly navigates the various horrors of life: existential, professional, familial, intimate—never taking his eyes off the prize of great achievement, never appreciating the value of that prize. Is it the shameful discovery that his success was born not in spite of his trauma, but because of it? Are we indebted to the abuse?
Is the gasoline of our lives, burned on the way to somewhere more meaningful?
To the forces of culture, state, power, and those who wield it, shaping our brutal heritage (and homelands)? The film is charming, cool-looking, and not boring (did you hear it was long?). It seems to be based on an old novel—a mysterious subject I’d love to explore in some detail the film refuses to share.
But there’s no novel
This aging Man’s search for meaning becomes ours, too. And any greater understanding of Lazlo’s arrival, his family’s machinations, his country, and the rootless roots, for better or for worse, feels up to us to construct.